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I don’t make a lot of stir-frys, for some reason I get the impression that they’re kinda boring. Nothing is ever cooked right, the veggies are too hard, the sauce is too goopy…I know it’s easy and fast but I get bored of it. I do love crispy meatie things though and one night I decided to make something asiany as I am on a bit of a kick lately. Turns out this is super easy but it does taste the best fresh. Sweet and savoury with crispy beef and veggies that are cooked all the way through!

I was scrolling through Reddit one day and saw a pic of this dish that someone had made, it just looked crazy delicious, rustic and ummm..one pan? Yes please! Did some research and apparently it’s a Moroccan dish called Kefta and I had all the ingredients in my house already….convenient. I have a couple of friends that store a set of my tires in their garage and as a thank you, I decided to pull out this recipe…it did not disappoint.

So yes, there are those of you out there that are quite squeamish with organs of animals. However…let me try and convince you that beef heart is where it’s at! With organs, people get all weirded out because things like livers and kidneys filter out bad stuff…so why would we eat it?

I am one of those rare types that can eat almost anything (I blame it on the chinese upbringing) but if you really think about it, a heart is a muscle. You eat muscle? You eat steak and ground beef right?

The heart is a hard working muscle which makes it quite lean and you would expect it to be quite tough but it actually isn’t at all. We buy ours from a freerange and organic farm and it comes quite fresh.

But here is the tough part, if you’re butcher just gives it to you whole, you’ll have to do some serious cleaning and that might make you squeamish all over again.

See looks like just a regular piece of roast when it’s cleaned right? Yes you will have to trim off fat and the silver membrane that covers the whole heart but it’s quite worth it. The meat is tender, you can cook it up on the bbq just like steak with it medium rare in the middle. We’ve cooked it well done on skewers with veggies before and it was still moist and tender.

Cow’s hearts can weigh up to 4lb each but they can be cooked in a variety of ways. Grill it, stew it, you name it, it’s tasty and there’s virtually no fat. Plus on the bonus side, beef heart is usually super cheap! We get ours for $1 a pound, that’s an amazing steal.

It’s not quite stringy like regular meat muscle is but it’s got the same firmness that liver and kidneys just don’t have.

Even fancy restos are serving it up now…try it…just forget what it is and enjoy!

I saw in Wholefoods the other day on Cambie these giant meatballs that they were serving at the hot food counter and I thought….that is totally IN for our slow carb diet plan. I used to hate spaghetti squash, it was flavourless and just plain boring but since we’ve cut out pasta in our diet, it makes a wonderful substitute. The mild flavour and the texture (if you don’t over cook it) is spot on without the guilt. Plus it’s full of vitamins!

These meatballs are a little on the stiffer side as there are no breadcrumbs in the recipe but they are crazy tasty even though they’re not as tender as usual.

Make these meatballs and add your favourite pasta sauce and veggies in for a delicious low carb filling meal!

So I realize this dish probably tastes better than it looks since it consists only of brown. Put it with a salad to liven up the colour palette! One late night I just wanted something quick and filling so I tossed in some beef and eggplant to make a tasty dish in under 20 minutes.

With some roasted eggplant and a tomato salad, a small inexpensive roast for two was easier to make than I had imagined. Inside round by nature is lean and can be tough if cooked too long. The key to success is to marinate with something acidic for a few hours and cook it only to rare or medium rare. Our one pound roast was a little too much for one meal but made some great sandwiches the next day!

As kids we loved this soup to death. Slightly sweet from all the carrots, the broth always turned out be a golden orange-y colour. We’d gnaw on the oxtail bones like rabid dogs and never bored of this soup my mom for some reason called borscht. It wasn’t until my twenties when I realized my mom’s borscht was strangely without beets and not a borscht at all. But the name has stuck and so in our family, that is what we’re going to call it until our dying days. This soup is deadly simple to make and the longer you simmer it, the better it tastes!